III

IN due course, the Tracts made their appearance at the remote rectory in

Sussex. Manning was some years younger than Newman, and the two men had

only met occasionally at the University; but now, through common

friends, a closer relationship began to grow up between them. It was

only to be expected that Newman should be anxious to enroll the rising

young Rector among his followers; and, on Manning's side, there were

many causes which impelled him to accept the overtures from Oxford.

He was a man of a serious and vigorous temperament, to whom it was

inevitable that the bold high principles of the Movement should strongly

appeal. There was also an element in his mind that element which had

terrified him in his childhood with Apocalyptic visions, and urged him

in his youth to Bible readings after breakfast--which now brought him

under the spell of the Oxford theories of sacramental mysticism. And

besides, the Movement offered another attraction: it imputed an

extraordinary, transcendent merit to the profession which Manning

himself pursued. The cleric was not as his lay brethren; he was a

creature apart, chosen by Divine will and sanctified by Divine

mysteries. It was a relief to find, when one had supposed that one was

nothing but a clergyman, that one might, after all, be something

else--one might be a priest.

Accordingly, Manning shook off his early Evangelical convictions,

started an active correspondence with Newman, and was soon working for

the new cause. He collected quotations, and began to translate the works

of Optatus for Dr. Pusey. He wrote an article on Justin for the British

Critic, "Newman's Magazine". He published a sermon on Faith, with notes

and appendices, which was condemned by an evangelical bishop, and

fiercely attacked by no less a person than the celebrated Mr. Bowdler.

'The sermon,' said Mr Bowdler, in a book which he devoted to the

subject, 'was bad enough, but the appendix was abominable.' At the same

time he was busy asserting the independence of the Church of England,

opposing secular education, and bringing out pamphlets against the

Ecclesiastical Commission, which had been appointed by Parliament to

report on Church Property. Then we find him in the role of a spiritual

director of souls. Ladies met him by stealth in his church, and made

their confessions. Over one case--that of a lady, who found herself

drifting towards Rome--he consulted Newman. Newman advised him to

'enlarge upon the doctrine of I Cor. vii';

'also, I think you must press on her the prospect of benefiting the poor

Church, through which she has her baptism, by stopping in it. Does she

not care for the souls of all around her, steeped and stifled in

Protestantism? How will she best care for them by indulging her own

feelings in the communion of Rome, or in denying herself, and staying in

sackcloth and ashes to do them good?'

Whether these arguments were successful does not appear.

For several years after his wife's death, Manning was occupied with

these new activities, while his relations with Newman developed into

what was apparently a warm friendship. 'And now vive valeque, my dear

Manning', we find Newman writing in a letter dated 'in festo S. Car.

1838', 'as wishes and prays yours affectionately, John H. Newman'. But,

as time went on, the situation became more complicated. Tractarianism

began to arouse the hostility, not only of the evangelical, but of the

moderate churchmen, who could not help perceiving in the ever-deepening,

'catholicism' of the Oxford party, the dread approaches of Rome. The

"Record" newspaper an influential Evangelical journal--took up the

matter and sniffed Popery in every direction; it spoke of certain

clergymen as 'tainted'; and after that, preferment seemed to pass those

clergymen by. The fact that Manning found it wise to conduct his

confessional ministrations in secret was in itself highly significant.

It was necessary to be careful, and Manning was very careful indeed. The

neighbouring Archdeacon, Mr. Hare, was a low churchman; Manning made

friends with him, as warmly, it seemed, as he had made friends with

Newman. He corresponded with him, asked his advice about the books he

should read, and discussed questions of Theology--'As to Gal. vi 15, we

cannot differ.... With a man who reads and reasons I can have no

controversy; and you do both.' Archdeacon Hare was pleased, but soon a

rumour reached him, which was, to say the least of it, upsetting.

Manning had been removing the high pews from a church in Brighton, and

putting in open benches in their place. Everyone knew what that meant;

everyone knew that a high pew was one of the bulwarks of Protestantism,

and that an open bench had upon it the taint of Rome. But Manning

hastened to explain:

'My dear friend,' he wrote, 'I did not exchange pews for open benches,

but got the pews (the same in number) moved from the nave of the church

to the walls of the side aisles, so that the whole church has a regular

arrangement of open benches, which (irregularly) existed before ... I am

not today quite well, so farewell, with much regard--Yours ever, H. E.

M.'

Archdeacon Hare was reassured.

It was important that he should be, for the Archdeacon of Chichester was

growing very old, and Hare's influence might be exceedingly useful when

a vacancy occurred. So, indeed, it fell out. A new bishop, Dr.

Shuttleworth, was appointed to the See, and the old Archdeacon took the

opportunity of retiring. Manning was obviously marked out as his

successor, but the new bishop happened to be a low churchman, an

aggressive low churchman, who went so far as to parody the Tractarian

fashion of using Saints' days for the dating of letters by writing 'The

Palace, washing-day', at the beginning of his. And--what was equally

serious--his views were shared by Mrs. Shuttleworth, who had already

decided that the pushing young Rector was 'tainted'. But at the critical

moment Archdeacon Hare came to the rescue; he persuaded the Bishop that

Manning was safe; and the appointment was accordingly made--behind Mrs.

Shuttleworth's back. She was furious, but it was too late; Manning was

an Archdeacon. All the lady could do, to indicate her disapprobation,

was to put a copy of Mr. Bowdler's book in a conspicuous position on the

drawing-room table, when he came to pay his respects at the Palace.

Among the letters of congratulation which Manning received, was one from

Mr Gladstone, with whom he had remained on terms of close friendship

since their days together at Oxford.

'I rejoice,' Mr Gladstone wrote, 'on your account personally; but more

for the sake of the Church. All my brothers-in-law are here and scarcely

less delighted than I am. With great glee am I about to write your new

address; but, the occasion really calls for higher sentiments; and sure

am I that you are one of the men to whom it is specially given to

develop the solution of that great problem--how all our minor

distractions are to be either abandoned, absorbed, or harmonised through

the might of the great principle of communion in the body of Christ.'

Manning was an Archdeacon; but he was not yet out of the woods. His

relations with the Tractarians had leaked out, and the Record was

beginning to be suspicious. If Mrs. Shuttleworth's opinion of him were

to become general, it would certainly be a grave matter. Nobody could

wish to live and die a mere Archdeacon. And then, at that very moment,

an event occurred which made it imperative to take a definite step, one

way or the other. That event was the publication of Tract No. 90.

For some time it had been obvious to every impartial onlooker that

Newman was slipping down an inclined plane at the bottom of which lay

one thing, and one thing only--the Roman Catholic Church. What was

surprising was the length of time which he was taking to reach the

inevitable destination. Years passed before he came to realise that his

grandiose edifice of a Church Universal would crumble to pieces if one

of its foundation stones was to be an amatory intrigue of Henry VIII.

But, at last he began to see that terrible monarch glowering at him

wherever he turned his eyes. First he tried to exorcise the spectre with

the rolling periods of the Caroline divines; but it only strutted the

more truculently. Then in despair he plunged into the writings of the

early Fathers, and sought to discover some way out of his difficulties

in the complicated labyrinth of ecclesiastical history. After months

spent in the study of the Monophysite heresy, the alarming conclusion

began to force itself upon him that the Church of England was perhaps in

schism. Eventually he read an article by a Roman Catholic on St.

Augustine and the Donatists, which seemed to put the matter beyond

doubt. St. Augustine, in the fifth century, had pointed out that the

Donatists were heretics because the Bishop of Rome had said so. The

argument was crushing; it rang in Newman's ears for days and nights;

and, though he continued to linger on in agony for six years more, he

never could discover any reply to it. All he could hope to do was to

persuade himself and anyone else who liked to listen to him that the

holding of Anglican orders was not inconsistent with a belief in the

whole cycle of Roman doctrine as laid down at the Council of Trent. In

this way he supposed that he could at once avoid the deadly sin of

heresy and conscientiously remain a clergyman in the Church of England;

and with this end in view, he composed Tract No. 90.

The object of the Tract was to prove that there was nothing in the

Thirty-nine Articles incompatible with the creed of the Roman Church.

Newman pointed out, for instance, that it was generally supposed that

the Articles condemned the doctrine of Purgatory; but they did not; they

merely condemned the Romish doctrine of Purgatory--and Romish, clearly,

was not the same thing as Roman. Hence it followed that believers in the

Roman doctrine of Purgatory might subscribe the Articles with a good

conscience. Similarly, the Articles condemned 'the sacrifices of

masses', but they did not condemn 'the sacrifice of the Mass'. Thus, the

Mass might be lawfully celebrated in English Churches. Newman took the

trouble to examine the Articles in detail from this point of view, and

the conclusion he came to in every case supported his contention in a

singular manner.

The Tract produced an immense sensation, for it seemed to be a deadly

and treacherous blow aimed at the very heart of the Church of England.

Deadly it certainly was, but it was not so treacherous as it appeared at

first sight. The members of the English Church had ingenuously imagined

up to that moment that it was possible to contain, in a frame of words,

the subtle essence of their complicated doctrinal system, involving the

mysteries of the Eternal and the Infinite on the one hand, and the

elaborate adjustments of temporal government on the other. They did not

understand that verbal definitions in such a case will only perform

their functions so long as there is no dispute about the matters which

they are intended to define: that is to say, so long as there is no need

for them. For generations this had been the case with the Thirty-nine

Articles. Their drift was clear enough; and nobody bothered over their

exact meaning. But directly someone found it important to give them a

new and untraditional interpretation, it appeared that they were a mass

of ambiguity, and might be twisted into meaning very nearly anything

that anybody liked. Steady-going churchmen were appalled and outraged

when they saw Newman, in Tract No. 90, performing this operation. But,

after all, he was only taking the Church of England at its word. And

indeed, since Newman showed the way, the operation has become so

exceedingly common that the most steady-going churchman hardly raises an

eyebrow at it now.

At the time, however, Newman's treatment of the Articles seemed to

display not only a perverted supersubtlety of intellect, but a temper of

mind that was fundamentally dishonest. It was then that he first began

to be assailed by those charges of untruthfulness which reached their

culmination more than twenty years later in the celebrated controversy

with Charles Kingsley, which led to the writing of the Apologia. The

controversy was not a very fruitful one, chiefly because Kingsley could

no more understand the nature of Newman's intelligence than a subaltern

in a line regiment can understand a Brahmin of Benares. Kingsley was a

stout Protestant, whose hatred of Popery was, at bottom, simply

ethical--an honest, instinctive horror of the practices of priestcraft

and the habits of superstition; and it was only natural that he should

see in those innumerable delicate distinctions which Newman was

perpetually drawing, and which he himself had not only never thought of,

but could not even grasp, simply another manifestation of the inherent

falsehood of Rome. But, in reality, no one, in one sense of the word,

was more truthful than Newman. The idea of deceit would have been

abhorrent to him; and indeed it was owing to his very desire to explain

what he had in his mind exactly and completely, with all the refinements

of which his subtle brain was capable, that persons such as Kingsley

were puzzled into thinking him dishonest. Unfortunately, however, the

possibilities of truth and falsehood depend upon other things besides

sincerity. A man may be of a scrupulous and impeccable honesty, and yet

his respect for the truth--it cannot be denied--may be insufficient. He

may be, like the lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 'of imagination all

compact'; he may be blessed, or cursed, with one of those 'seething

brains', one of those 'shaping fanatasies' that 'apprehend more than

cool reason ever comprehends'; he may be by nature incapable of sifting

evidence, or by predilection simply indisposed to do so. 'When we were

there,' wrote Newman in a letter to a friend after his conversion,

describing a visit to Naples, and the miraculous circumstances connected

with the liquefaction of St. Januarius's blood,

'the feast of St. Gennaro was coming on, and the Jesuits were eager for

us to stop--they have the utmost confidence in the miracle--and were the

more eager because many Catholics, till they have seen it, doubt it. Our

father director here tells us that before he went to Naples he did not

believe it. That is, they have vague ideas of natural means,

exaggeration, etc., not of course imputing fraud. They say conversions

often take place in consequence. It is exposed for the Octave, and the

miracle continues--it is not simple liquefaction, but sometimes it

swells, sometimes boils, sometimes melts--no one can tell what is going

to take place. They say it is quite overcoming-and people cannot help

crying to see it. I understand that Sir H. Davy attended everyday, and

it was this extreme variety of the phenomenon which convinced him that

nothing physical would account for it. Yet there is this remarkable fact

that liquefactions of blood are common at Naples--and, unless it is

irreverent to the Great Author of Miracles to be obstinate in the

inquiry, the question certainly rises whether there is something in the

air. (Mind, I don't believe there is--and, speaking humbly, and without

having seen it, think it a true miracle--but I am arguing.) We saw the

blood of St Patrizia, half liquid; i.e. liquefying, on her feast day. St

John Baptist's blood sometimes liquefies on the 29th of August, and did

when we were at Naples, but we had not time to go to the church. We saw

the liquid blood of an Oratorian Father; a good man, but not a saint,

who died two centuries ago, I think; and we saw the liquid blood of Da

Ponte, the great and holy Jesuit, who, I suppose, was almost a saint.

But these instances do not account for liquefaction on certain days, if

this is the case. But the most strange phenomenon is what happens at

Ravello, a village or town above Amalfi. There is the blood of St.

Pantaleon. It is in a vessel amid the stonework of the Altar-it is not

touched but on his feast in June it liquefies. And more, there is an

excommunication against those who bring portions of the True Cross into

the Church. Why? Because the blood liquefies, whenever it is brought. A

person I know, not knowing the prohibition, brought in a portion, and

the Priest suddenly said, who showed the blood, "Who has got the Holy

Cross about him?" I tell you what was told me by a grave and religious

man. It is a curious coincidence that in telling this to our Father

Director here, he said, "Why, we have a portion of St. Pantaleon's blood

at the Chiesa Nuova, and it is always liquid."'

After leaving Naples, Newman visited Loreto, and inspected the house of

the Holy Family, which, as is known to the faithful, was transported

thither, in three hops, from Palestine.

'I went to Loreto,' he wrote, 'with a simple faith, believing what I

still more believed when I saw it. I have no doubt now. If you ask me

why I believe it, it is because everyone believes it at Rome; cautious

as they are and sceptical about some other things. I have no antecedent

difficulty in the matter. He who floated the Ark on the surges of a

world-wide sea, and enclosed in it all living things, who has hidden the

terrestrial paradise, who said that faith might move mountains, who

sustained thousands for forty years in a sterile wilderness, who

transported Elias and keeps him hidden till the end, could do this

wonder also.'

Here, whatever else there may be, there is certainly no trace of a

desire to deceive. Could a state of mind, in fact, be revealed with more

absolute transparency?

When Newman was a child he 'wished that he could believe the Arabian

Nights were true'. When he came to be a man, his wish seems to have been

granted.

Tract No. 90 was officially condemned by the authorities at Oxford, and

in the hubbub that followed, the contending parties closed their ranks;

henceforward, any compromise between the friends and the enemies of the

Movement was impossible. Archdeacon Manning was in too conspicuous a

position to be able to remain silent; he was obliged to declare himself,

and he did not hesitate. In an archidiaconal charge, delivered within a

few months of his appointment, he firmly repudiated the Tractarians. But

the repudiation was not deemed sufficient, and a year later he repeated

it with greater emphasis. Still, however, the horrid rumours were

afloat. The "Record" began to investigate matters, and its vigilance was

soon rewarded by an alarming discovery: the sacrament had been

administered in Chichester Cathedral on a weekday, and 'Archdeacon

Manning, one of the most noted and determined of the Tractarians, had

acted a conspicuous part on the occasion'. It was clear that the only

way of silencing these malevolent whispers was by some public

demonstration whose import nobody could doubt. The annual sermon

preached on Guy Fawkes Day before the University of Oxford seemed to

offer the very opportunity that Manning required. He seized it; got

himself appointed preacher; and delivered from the pulpit of St. Mary's

a virulently Protestant harangue. This time there could indeed be no

doubt about the matter: Manning had shouted 'No Popery!' in the very

citadel of the Movement, and every one, including Newman, recognised

that he had finally cut himself off from his old friends. Everyone, that

is to say, except the Archdeacon himself. On the day after the sermon,

Manning walked out to the neighbouring village of Littlemore, where

Newman was now living in retirement with a few chosen disciples, in the

hope of being able to give a satisfactory explanation of what he had

done. But he was disappointed; for when, after an awkward interval, one

of the disciples appeared at the door, he was informed that Mr. Newman

was not at home.

With his retirement to Littlemore, Newman had entered upon the final

period of his Anglican career. Even he could no longer help perceiving

that the end was now only a matter of time. His progress was hastened in

an agitating manner by the indiscreet activity of one of his proselytes,

W. G. Ward. a young man who combined an extraordinary aptitude for a

priori reasoning with a passionate devotion to Opera Bouffe. It was

difficult, in fact, to decide whether the inner nature of Ward was more

truly expressing itself when he was firing off some train of scholastic

paradoxes on the Eucharist or when he was trilling the airs of Figaro

and plunging through the hilarious roulades of the Largo al Factotum.

Even Dr. Pusey could not be quite sure, though he was Ward's spiritual

director. On one occasion his young penitent came to him, and confessed

that a vow which he had taken to abstain from music during Lent was

beginning to affect his health. Could Dr. Pusey see his way to releasing

him from the vow? The Doctor decided that a little sacred music would

not be amiss. Ward was all gratitude, and that night a party was

arranged in a friend's rooms. The concert began with the solemn

harmonies of Handel, which were followed by the holy strains of the 'Oh

Salutaris' of Cherubini. Then came the elevation and the pomp of

'Possenti Numi' from the Magic Flute. But, alas! there lies much danger

in Mozart. The page was turned and there was the delicious duet between

Papageno and Papagena. Flesh and blood could not resist that; then song

followed song, the music waxed faster and lighter, until, at last Ward

burst into the intoxicating merriment of the Largo al Factotum. When it

was over, a faint but persistent knocking made itself heard upon the

wall; and it was only then that the company remembered that the rooms

next door were Dr. Pusey's.

The same entrainment which carried Ward away when he sat down to a piano

possessed him whenever he embarked on a religious discussion. 'The thing

that was utterly abhorrent to him,' said one of his friends, 'was to

stop short.' Given the premises, he would follow out their implications

with the mercilessness of a medieval monk, and when he had reached the

last limits of argument, be ready to maintain whatever propositions he

might find there with his dying breath. He had the extreme innocence of

a child and a mathematician. Captivated by the glittering eye of Newman,

he swallowed whole the supernatural conception of the universe which

Newman had evolved, accepted it as a fundamental premise, and 'began at

once to deduce from it whatsoever there might be to be deduced.' His

very first deductions included irrefutable proofs of (I) God's

particular providence for individuals; (2) the real efficacy of

intercessory prayer; (3) the reality of our communion with the saints

departed; (4) the constant presence and assistance of the angels of God.

Later on he explained mathematically the importance of the Ember Days:

'Who can tell,' he added, 'the degree of blessing lost to us in this

land by neglecting, as we alone of Christian Churches do neglect, these

holy days?' He then proceeded to convict the Reformers, not only of

rebellion, but'--for my own part I see not how we can avoid adding--of

perjury.' Every day his arguments became more extreme, more rigorously

exact, and more distressing to his master. Newman was in the position of

a cautious commander-in-chief being hurried into an engagement against

his will by a dashing cavalry officer. Ward forced him forward step by

step towards-no! he could not bear it; he shuddered and drew back. But

it was of no avail. In vain did Keble and Pusey wring their hands and

stretch forth their pleading arms to their now vanishing brother. The

fatal moment was fast approaching. Ward at last published a devastating

book in which he proved conclusively, by a series of syllogisms, that

the only proper course for the Church of England was to repent in

sackcloth and ashes her separation from the Communion of Rome. The

reckless author was deprived of his degree by an outraged University,

and a few weeks later was received into the Catholic Church.

Newman, in a kind of despair, had flung himself into the labours of

historical compilation. His views of history had changed since the days

when, as an undergraduate, he had feasted on the worldly pages of

Gibbon.

'Revealed religion,' he now thought, 'furnishes facts to other sciences,

which those sciences, left to themselves, would never reach. Thus, in

the science of history, the preservation of our race in Noah's Ark is an

historical fact, which history never would arrive at without

revelation.'

With these principles to guide him, he plunged with his disciples into a

prolonged study of the English Saints. Biographies soon appeared of St.

Bega, St. Adamnan, St. Gundleus, St. Guthlake, Brother Drithelm, St.

Amphibalus, St. Wuistan, St. Ebba, St. Neot, St. Ninian, and Cunibert

the Hermit. Their austerities, their virginity, and their miraculous

powers were described in detail. The public learned with astonishment

that St Ninian had turned a staff into a tree; that St. German had

stopped a cock from crowing, and that a child had been raised from the

dead to convert St. Helier. The series has subsequently been continued

by a more modern writer whose relation of the history of the blessed St.

Mael contains, perhaps, even more matter for edification than Newman's

biographies.

At the time, indeed, those works caused considerable scandal. Clergymen

denounced them in pamphlets. St. Cuthbert was described by his

biographer as having 'carried the jealousy of women, characteristic of

all the saints, to an extraordinary pitch'. An example was given,

whenever he held a spiritual conversation with St Ebba, he was careful

to spend the ensuing ours of darkness 'in prayer, up to his neck in

water'. 'Persons who invent such tales,' wrote one indignant

commentator, 'cast very grave and just suspicions on the purity of their

own minds. And young persons, who talk and think in this way, are in

extreme danger of falling into sinful habits. As to the volumes before

us, the authors have, in their fanatical panegyrics of virginity, made

use of language downright profane.'

One of the disciples at Littlemore was James Anthony Froude, the younger

brother of Hurrell, and it fell to his lot to be responsible for the

biography of St. Neot. While he was composing it, he began to feel some

qualms. Saints who lighted fires with icicles, changed bandits into

wolves, and floated across the Irish Channel on altar-stones, produced a

disturbing effect on his historical conscience. But he had promised his

services to Newman, and he determined to carry through the work in the

spirit in which he had begun it. He did so; but he thought it proper to

add the following sentence by way of conclusion: 'This is all, and

indeed rather more than all, that is known to men of the blessed St.

Neot; but not more than is known to the angels in heaven.'

Meanwhile, the English Roman Catholics were growing impatient; was the

great conversion never coming, for which they had prayed so fervently

and so long? Dr. Wiseman, at the head of them, was watching and waiting

with special eagerness. His hand was held out under the ripening fruit;

the delicious morsel seemed to be trembling on its stalk; and yet it did

not fall. At last, unable to bear the suspense any longer, he dispatched

to Littlemore Father Smith, an old pupil of Newman's, who had lately

joined the Roman communion, with instructions that he should do his

best, under cover of a simple visit of friendship, to discover how the

land lay. Father Smith was received somewhat coldly, and the

conversation ran entirely on topics which had nothing to do with

religion. When the company separated before dinner, he was beginning to

think that his errand had been useless; but, on their reassembling, he

suddenly noticed that Newman had changed his trousers, and that the

colour of the pair which he was now wearing was grey. At the earliest

moment, the emissary rushed back post-haste to Dr. Wiseman. 'All is

well,' he exclaimed; 'Newman no longer considers that he is in Anglican

orders." Praise be to God!' answered Dr Wiseman. 'But how do you know?'

Father Smith described what he had seen. 'Oh, is that all? My dear

father, how can you be so foolish?' But Father Smith was not to be

shaken. 'I know the man,' he said, and I know what it means. 'Newman will

come, and he will come soon.'

And Father Smith was right. A few weeks later, Newman suddenly slipped

off to a priest, and all was over. Perhaps he would have hesitated

longer still, if he could have foreseen how he was to pass the next

thirty years of his unfortunate existence; but the future was hidden,

and all that was certain was that the past had gone forever, and that

his eyes would rest no more upon the snapdragons of Trinity.

The Oxford Movement was now ended. The University breathed such a sigh

of relief as usually follows the difficult expulsion of a hard piece of

matter from a living organism, and actually began to attend to

education. As for the Church of England, she had tasted blood, and it

was clear that she would never again be content with a vegetable diet.

Her clergy, however, maintained their reputation for judicious

compromise, for they followed Newman up to the very point beyond which

his conclusions were logical, and, while they intoned, confessed, swung

incense, and burned candles with the exhilaration of converts, they yet

managed to do so with a subtle nuance which showed that they had nothing

to do with Rome. Various individuals underwent more violent changes.

Several had preceded Newman into the Roman fold; among others an unhappy

Mr. Sibthorpe, who subsequently changed his mind, and returned to the

Church of his fathers, and then--perhaps it was only natural--changed

his mind again. Many more followed Newman, and Dr. Wiseman was

particularly pleased by the conversion of a Mr. Morris, who, as he said,

was 'the author of the essay, which won the prize on the best method of

proving Christianity to the Hindus'. Hurrell Froude had died before

Newman had read the fatal article on St. Augustine; but his brother,

James Anthony, together with Arthur Clough, the poet, went through an

experience which was more distressing in those days than it has since

become; they lost their faith. With this difference, however, that while

in Froude's case the loss of his faith turned out to be rather like the

loss of a heavy portmanteau, which one afterwards discovers to have been

full of old rags and brickbats, Clough was made so uneasy by the loss of

his that he went on looking for it everywhere as long as he lived; but

somehow he never could find it. On the other hand, Keble and Pusey

continued for the rest of their lives to dance in an exemplary manner

upon the tight-rope of High Anglicanism; in such an exemplary manner,

indeed, that the tight-rope has its dancers still.